I believe that most gun owners come to the net if they have problems with their Kimber or Colt or whatever. There is a core of shooters who come here to talk BS about shooting in general but most people who buy these guns don't visit forums to talk guns. They come here to complain, if they need to.
The point is, if Kimber sells 50,000 guns a year and has a 1% failure rate, that's 500 unhappy campers. If they all came to this site to complain you'd think Kimber is making crap. We don't see the 49,500 happy campers. I'd bet most of the Kimber owners buy them and shoot maybe 200 rounds a year. These buyers buy them for the glitz and name and never really put them to the test.
If Brand X sold 15,000 1911s a year with the same 1% failure rate there would be 150 unhappy campers. 150 vs 500 and it looks like Kimber is a waste of money. The fact is there are 49,500 happy Kimber owners (per year) and there are 14,850 happy Brand X owners. Unless you are a regular on gun boards, the happy campers don't come by to tell us how wonderful their Kimbers are.
If you sell the most, by a wide margin, you will have the most problems but that does not mean you make the worst product. It's all numbers, not rocket science. The 1% (or whatever) of the unlucky owners deserve to be pissed because they spent a lot of money. No one likes to buy a bad product but in the age of mass production it happens and it happens all to frequently.
I've read all the Kimber bashing here and everywhere else and take it for what it's worth. There are people who post their experiences and there are those who have a vendetta. I am one of the happy campers. I wouldn't sell or trade my pre-series II for any gun out there but that's just one man's opinion. 55,000 of us buy a Kimber every year. Somebody must be getting a good gun or there wouldn't be lines to buy them.